


Catching up with you

by unwillingadventurer



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 19:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12800637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwillingadventurer/pseuds/unwillingadventurer
Summary: Memories are brought to life in the strangest places.





	Catching up with you

“So, we’ve arrived in a museum?” Bill said as she looked around the dusty old room, filled with cobwebs covered over exhibits and artefacts, “and not a very happenin’ one at that.” She lifted one of the cobwebs from the Doctor’s shoulder and then glanced around again. 

The Doctor too was curious and already rummaging through an old book on the table. “It is quiet, you’re right. Where is everyone?”

Bill appeared behind him and peered over his shoulder. “You allowed to touch that?”

“I don’t see anyone here to ask me to stop, do you?” He paused for a moment and then looked back at her. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless we’re not here yet.” His eyes darted back and forth as he spun around to face her so their noses were almost touching. 

She laughed and backed away a pace. “But, we are here.”

The Doctor smiled a toothy grin and then shook his head. “No, lightning doesn’t strike twice does it?” His Cheshire cat smile changed to a guilty frown. “Well except to that poor gondolier on that fateful night in Venice but hey that was a different century.”

“As usual, not a clue what you’re on about but let’s just find something interesting to look at shall we? You promised me a really wicked science museum but this looks like a museum of lost property. Hashtag boring.”

“Hashtag shut-up and follow me.”

The Doctor led the way through the double doors and into a much bigger space on the other side. The cold air hit them immediately and though the room was dark there was also a white-blue light emanating from a sequence of lights in the ceiling. 

“So, someone does come here then?” Bill said, staring in awe at the illuminations. She cuddled herself for warmth. “Bit nippy though, reminds me of firework night down the football pitch, freezing your bum off whilst pretending you’ve never seen a Catherine Wheel before.” 

She looked at the Doctor, realising he’d been silent for several moments. She nudged him but he didn’t move, stuck still like a statue just focused on an exhibit a few paces in front of him. 

“Doctor?” She turned to look at what captivated him and saw the glass cabinet. The glass itself was frosty and clouded but there was some kind of figure lurking behind it. She peered down to look at the exhibit description, squinting her eyes to be able to see the small scripted writing. 

“Battle of Culloden?” Bill read aloud and then her smile erupted into a wide grin. “So, it’s a figure of some soldier in a battle yeah? Thought this was a science museum but still, kinda epic.”

“Not just any soldier, Bill.”

He wandered over to the cabinet and carefully wiped the frosty glass with his sleeve until he could see the face of the figure properly staring back at him, its eyes open and vacant. The Doctor hung his head and then he reached out to touch the glass directly where the cheek was on the other side. The glass was cold and delicate as though it could fracture at any moment. 

“What have they done to you, old friend?” he whispered as he looked at the man in the kilt, the man he had known so well.

Bill looked carefully at the figure. “Old friend? Doctor, you know him?”

“It’s Jamie McCrimmon. We knew each other a long time ago.”

“But that’s just a statue isn’t it, he’s not actually him?”

The Doctor stared at the figure and then stepped back. “I hope not. But I need to find what else is here, it can’t just be Jamie.”

The next cabinet along was covered in cobwebs and dust and looked like it hadn’t been observed in years. The figure inside was female and seemed to be wearing an air hostess uniform in some sort of purple colour which had faded with time.

Bill could sense the Doctor knew her too and so prodded him playfully. “Old friend as well?”

The Doctor’s eyes were filled with confusion. “Yes. Tegan Jovanka. But what’s she doing here? What is this place?”

“So, it’s like a museum with your friends in it, what’s that about?”

“How am I supposed to know?” The Doctor snapped. 

Bill frowned, holding her hands out in protest. “Sorry, just trying to help.”

The Doctor softened. “Yes, of course you were. But I’m afraid something is very wrong here, Bill, very wrong.”

Before Bill had the chance to discuss the matter further, something else had caught the Doctor’s attention. She followed him to a plinth where another figure was seated on top, produced in fine marble. It was the statue of a young woman with medium length hair and wearing a big coat, short dress, and a pair of knee-high boots-perfectly crafted to the finest detail.

“Let me guess, you know her too?” Bill said admiring the statue. 

“Jo Grant or maybe Jones depending on what time you want to go by. Why is it here? Why are they all here as these display things?”

He reached out to Jo’s hand but as he did so it crumbled at his touch and the figure of her began to fall, tumble down onto the ground where it lay in pieces, shattered, broken and no longer the likeness and beauty of its bearer. 

The Doctor and Bill looked at one another in surprise. “What happened?” Bill cried. 

The Doctor ignored her and began to run instead, down the long winding corridor, as fast as he could, running on and on until everything started to blur and blend into one. Bill followed and found herself struggling to keep up as he passed more and more cases with figures inside. There were plinths too and other exhibits, endless and endless, forever and forever.

The Doctor glanced at a row of cases as he ran past them. “Harry, Peri, Martha, Vicki, Steven, Mel, Nyssa…” He just kept saying their names, one at a time, the names of everyone he saw.

When Bill finally caught up with him he was on his knees on the floor, staring around him like a lost old man, frightened and alone. His eyes watered and finally, no longer able to hold the emotion, a single tear landed upon his cheek.

“They’re all here. Each and every single one,” the Doctor said with a whimper.

Bill sat down beside him and nudged his arm. “Maybe its not so bad, maybe someone’s just trying to remind you of the good times.”

“No one is that kind.”

“So, what then? Some alien has lured you here and is taunting you with memories?”

“Maybe.”

“But the main thing is that no-one’s hurt. They’re not real and we’re safe, no one’s here are they?”

“Oh Bill, there’s always someone. You should know that just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t watching.”

“Well, that’s comforting. I’ll think of that next time I’m walking home late at night from the student union.”

The Doctor sat to attention and then rose to his feet quickly and pulled Bill up with him. “Come on, can you hear something?”

Bill stopped still at his request and listened around her where true enough there was faint music coming from behind the door, upbeat pop music playing on loop, over and over, seeming to repeat only a few bars of the same song. “Now that you mention it, yeah. It’s like someone playing some tunes.”

Taking large strides, the Doctor reached the door and flung it open dramatically, expecting something to leap out at him from the dark but instead his eyes widened in horror at something else that greeted him. 

There, standing before him, were the stone-like figures of his granddaughter Susan and also his first companions Ian and Barbara. They stood motionless in a group, close to one another as though in discussion, and there was only the sound of Susan’s radio playing the song they’d heard.

“What is it?” Bill asked, finally joining him.

“John Smith and the Common Men.”

Bill looked at the figure of Ian. “What? The guy in the middle?”

“No, no, the music. Used to drive me mad. ‘Grandfather its gone from 10 to 2 in the chart.’” He smiled gently at the memory he pretended to hate.

Bill pointed at the statues. “Sorry, lost. Who are they?”

“The statues are more old faces, some I said goodbye to so so long ago. The longest of all.”

Bill grabbed the Doctor’s hand. “Are you alright, Doctor? Because I know its tough. I mean I get like that with old photo albums but this is a whole other ball game.”

He laughed. “Photo albums, yes, I suppose it’s the same thing. My photo albums are slightly more complicated than everyone else’s.” 

He reached out and attempted to touch Susan’s stone hand and then he stopped, worried that if he did she’d crumble to pieces and he’d lose her for another time. She may have been made of rock or some other alien material but she looked and seemed so real as though she would spring to life at any moment and call out grandfather whilst embracing him in a longed-for hug.

“Maybe we should go,” Bill said, noticing the anguish in the Doctor’s expression. 

He nodded gently. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps on this one occasion I should observe and not interfere. Be like my old self for once.”

He took Bill’s hand gently and they headed toward the door on the far side of the room, but as they walked they passed a large ornate mirror hanging on the back wall. It was beautiful and gothic and seemed perfectly well-looked after compared to the other dusty and unkempt exhibits. 

“Classy,” Bill said. But as she looked deep into her reflection she caught a glimpse of herself as a teenager, still wearing the braces on her teeth she so hated. She stood back and shuddered at the sight. “That was weird.”

The Doctor peered in the mirror beside her and where her reflection was now the image of her younger self, seven years old with two big bunches in her hair- his reflection was different too. Bill glanced at the Doctor’s reflection and there was a younger man there. He was dark-haired with a big grin and seemed to be missing eyebrows, but then it changed, the image fading away and becoming something else- this time a man with sticky-up hair and big black rimmed glasses. And then there was another and another, different faces appearing one by one, tall men, some short, curly haired, blond haired, mostly bad taste in fashion, but they were all appearing from the Doctor’s own reflection. Finally, the face stopped and returned to the Doctor’s own. 

“Doctor? What just happened?”

“I saw…me.”

Bill attempted to ask but didn’t quite know what to say, instead she just squeaked and was forced to follow the Doctor as he made his way back to the door. He put one foot into the exit and then pulled himself back in as he felt something seem to push him away.

“Oh dear.”

Bill waved her hands in the air. “What now?”

“Slight problem.”

“What is it, a forcefield? Surely you with all your skills can deactivate a simple forcefield?”

“We aren’t here after all.”

Bill folded her arms. “You what? Is this a joke?”

The Doctor gestured to two empty cabinets in the corner of the room, open and still covered with cobwebs. “I think these are ours.”

Bill felt her heartbeat quicken. “You mean we’ve been here the whole time in those boxes?”

The Doctor didn’t know what to say. He grabbed her hand again. “I don’t think we’re who we think we are, Bill. I don’t think this is us.”

Bill breathed in slowly, trying to comprehend what was happening and then she heard the door handle turning and felt her knees tremble slightly. And her feet couldn’t move and then neither could her legs and her arms and fingers and then her eyes were heavy and then…

The door sprung open and a blonde woman stepped into the dim light. She held a sonic screwdriver into the air and waved it about. She shone the light in front of her to where two statues stood frozen in the centre of the room. She recognised them immediately and shuddered as she circled them and sighed.

“Its you.” She said touching the grey-haired Doctor’s face and then running her hand down Bill’s motionless cheek, “what have they done to you?”

“Doctor?” The sound of a young man’s voice could be heard from outside the room and then another voice and another, all calling her at the same time.

She looked at the room in confusion and then turned around. “Get in here, quickly. There’s something here we need to work out. Something tells me my past is trying to catch up with me.”

**Author's Note:**

> May continue this at some point. Just seeing where it goes really with a new era and everything. Keeping the ending open at the moment to re-visit later.


End file.
